JPS63228393A - Identification method for overthrown pin of bowling - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To set identification probability considerably highly and to easily adjust a device in a short time by setting areas partly including pictures of a part of respective pin heads at every pin in an image-pickup visual field and discriminating the presence of the pictures of the pin heads in the areas after throwing. CONSTITUTION:An image pickup means (TV camera) 21 image-picks up the set pins 1-10 obliquely from front above lest the pictures of the pin heads which can be obtained by the image pickup means 21 should be blocked by the pictures of other pin heads which are set ahead. An area setting means 25 sets the areas including at least the pictures of a part of respective pin heads at every pin head in the image-pickup visual field, and the presence of the pictures of the pin heads in the areas after throwing is discriminated by binarized picture signals based on a reference value which is decided with respect to the areas, whereby the overthrown pins are identified. Thus, erroneous identification due to the scar and dirt of the pin heads is prevented and adjustment is simplified.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention] [Industrial application field]

The present invention relates to a method for identifying knocked-down pins for automatic counting of the number of knocked-down pins, which is the heart of a bowling auto-scoring device. And it is easy to adjust.

[Conventional technology]

One conventional example will be explained with reference to FIGS. 8 and 9. Note that FIG. 8 is a plan view of a device to which a conventional example is applied, and FIG. 9 is a side view thereof. In this conventional example, one device is configured to identify two sets of pins 1 to 10 set in two lanes. The device mainly consists of a light projector 51 and a light receiver 52. This floodlight 51. The light receiver 52 is integrated,
It is attached to a table 53 that swings in the horizontal direction. stand 5
Reference numeral 3 denotes a motor (not shown), which is driven to swing within the range of angle α. Note that the angle α is set to be slightly larger than the angle formed by the line connecting each of the outermost pins in FIG. 8 with the zero rotation center of the table 53. By swinging the table 53 at high speed in the horizontal direction, the projector 51
The light beam P from the ball sequentially illuminates the head portion of each pin after pitching in a scanning manner, and becomes diffusely reflected light R, a part of which becomes the incident light Q to the light receiver 52 (see Fig. 9). ). In other words, the presence of intermittent pulsed incident light Q identifies that the corresponding pin has not been knocked down, and the number of remaining pins, and ultimately the number of pins to be knocked down, is counted based on the number of pulses of the incident light Q. be done.

[Problems to be solved by the invention]

As explained above, in the conventional technology, the identification of the pins to be knocked down and the counting of the pins are carried out using the projector 51 which swings in the horizontal direction at high speed. This is performed based on the measurement of pulsed reflected light from the pin heads 1 to 10 using a set of light receivers 52. Therefore, there are the following problems. (If the reflection condition changes slightly due to scratches or dirt on the surface of the 11-pin head, it may cause misidentification. (3) The relationship between the position and direction of the pin and the emitter/receiver set is delicate, and it is difficult to accurately adjust the spot of the light beam and the angle of depression. Otherwise, the light beam cannot be applied sharply and accurately to each pin. This directly affects the identification accuracy. This adjustment work is extremely difficult, requires a high degree of skill, and takes a lot of time. (4 ) It is necessary to keep the horizontal swing angle of the device small in order to keep the sharpness of the light spot irradiated to each pin head almost constant, and to reduce the amount of vertical positional deviation of this light spot. Therefore, it is installed at a considerable distance from the pin position, for example, 2 to 3 meters. Therefore, because the equipment is closer to the competitors, it is more likely to be noticed by the competitors (and may spoil the atmosphere of the competition.) The purpose of the invention is to solve the problems of the prior art, and to eliminate the risk of misidentification due to scratches or dirt on the pin head. An object of the present invention is to provide a method for identifying overturning pins.

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, in the present invention, a centered pin is captured by an imaging means from diagonally above the front surface of the pin, and any of the above-mentioned images obtained by this imaging means is The image of the pin head is also captured so that it is not obscured by the images of other pin heads set in front of it, and the image of at least a part of each of the pin heads is at least partially included in the image field of view. A region is set for each pin head by the region setting means, and presence or absence of an image of the pin head after pitching within the region is determined from a binarized image signal based on a reference value determined for this region. to identify whether the pin is overthrown. As an example, the video signal of the pin head image in each area is binarized based on a common reference value for all areas, and when the pin corresponding to each area is knocked down. , each area does not include a pin image located behind it. As another example, the video signal of the pinhead image in each region is binarized based on a reference value determined for each region. As yet another example, the reference values determined for each area may be the 2nd pin, the 3rd pin, the 4th bin, or the 6th pin.
The pin No. 7 and the pin No. 7 to pin No. 10 are made common to each other. [Operation] Before the pin is knocked down by a pitch, each set area has only the corresponding pin head image, and at least a portion thereof is included. If a certain pin is knocked down, the image of the pin head disappears from the corresponding area, so it can be identified that the pin has been knocked down. According to the embodiment, one dimension position of each region is selected such that each region does not include an image of a pin located behind the corresponding pin when it is defeated. Even if the video signal is binarized based on a common reference value for all regions, it can be accurately identified. According to another embodiment, since the video signal is binarized based on the reference value determined for each area, when the pin corresponding to each area is knocked down, other pins in the rear Even if a pin image is included, this pin image can be deleted by binarization. According to yet another embodiment, the video signal is connected to pin 2 and pin 3.
No. pin, No. 4 pin to No. 6 pin, No. 7 pin to No. 10
Since each number pin is binarized based on a commonly determined reference value, three types of reference values are sufficient.

【Example】

An embodiment of the invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. Note that FIG. 1 is a plan view of the device arrangement to which an embodiment of the present invention is applied, FIG. 2 is a side view thereof, and FIG.
The figure is a block diagram of a device to which this embodiment is applied, FIG. 4 is a pin layout diagram, and FIG. 5 is a pin number and its video signal level.
FIG. 6, which is a correspondence diagram with the binarization reference value, is an explanatory diagram of the imaging field of view when this embodiment is applied. In FIGS. 1 and 2, one device corresponds to a rune. The device is represented by a TV left camera 1, and the symbols for pins 1 to 10 indicate the pin numbers. The TV left camera 1 is installed so as to take images of the set pins 1 to 10 from diagonally above the front surface thereof, and how to install it will be described later. The light source 31 is a rod-shaped fluorescent lamp, and irradiates pins 1 to 0 diagonally from above. TV left camera 1. The set of light sources 31 is placed at a close distance from the set pin, for example, 1 m.
will be installed within. As shown in the block diagram of FIG. 3, the identification device includes a TV left camera 1 as an imaging means, and a TV left camera 2 as an image processing means.
Value conversion circuit 22. Reference value setting circuit 235 image memory 24,
Window setting circuit 25 as area setting means, image feature extraction diagram/path 26 as image identification means. Identification circuit 2
7, a monitor TV 2B, and a score display device 29. Note that the image processing means and the image identification means are shown separated by two-dot chain lines. The video signals of pins 1 to 10 from the TV left camera 1 are binarized by the binarization circuit 22 and then stored in the image memory 24. Note that the reference value for binarization is set by the reference value setting circuit 23.
It is set in advance by A predetermined window (N area) within the imaging field of view is set by the window setting circuit 25, and only the image of the pinhead within this window is
The image data is read out from the image memory 24, the area of the pinhead image is measured by the image feature extraction circuit 26 on the one hand, and the area of the pinhead image is monitored on the monitor TV 28 on the other hand. Next, in the identification circuit 27, based on the area of the pin head image, it is determined whether or not it is a pin to be defeated. This identification result is displayed on the score display device 29 in the form of a score. Regarding how to determine the reference value for binarization, see Figures 4 and 5.
This will be explained with reference to the figures. Figure 4 shows a pin arrangement set in an equilateral triangle,
The number inside the circle is the pin number. Figure 5 shows the pin placement locations and background (dark areas) represented by pin numbers on the horizontal axis, and the video signal level on the vertical axis, and the video signal level and binarization reference value between each pin and the background (dark area). are indicated by a small circle and a dashed-dotted line, respectively. In FIG. 5, the video signal level of pin 1 is the highest, represented by El, since this pin is closest to the light source. Hereinafter, as the distance from the light source increases, the 2nd and 3rd pins are represented by E2, the 4th to 6th pins are represented by E4, the 7th to 10th pins are represented by El, and the dark part of the background is represented by B. In addition,
Since the pins lined up horizontally have approximately the same brightness due to the light source 31 (see FIG. 1), their video signal levels also become approximately equal. Therefore, in order to distinguish all pins 1 to 10 from the background, the lowest video signal level E7 (7 to 10
It is sufficient to select 7 as the reference value, which is an intermediate value between the background video signal level B and the background video signal level B. Also, pins 1 to 6 are replaced by pins 7 to 10. In order to distinguish from the background, it is sufficient to select 4 as a reference value, which is an intermediate value between the video signal level E4 (4th to 6th pins) and the video signal level E7 (7th to 10th pins). Similarly, pins 1 to 3 are replaced with pins 4 to 10. To distinguish it from the background, set the value to 2 and set pin 1 to all pins 2 to 10 below. In order to distinguish it from the background, a value of 1 is selected. In the imaging field of view 30 in FIG. 6, the image of any pin head is focused so that it does not completely overlap with the image of the pin behind it. That is, the head images of pins 4 to 6 hardly overlap with the images of pins 7 to 10 behind them. The head images of pins 2 and 3 are respectively similar to those of pins 8 and 8 behind them. The image of pin 9 and the head image of pin 1 only partially overlap with the image of pin 5 behind them. In order to capture images in this way, the TV
The camera 21 is installed so as to image the set pins 1 to 10 from diagonally above in the vertical direction and from slightly diagonally to the left in the horizontal direction. A window (region) Wl, which partially includes a part of the head image of each pin 1 to 10, and does not include the bin image located behind it when the pin is knocked down,
WIO is set. That is, for pin 1, there is a rectangular fallen toe W1 with a narrow width that includes the right edge line of the head.
is set. The bin head image inside this window W1 is the shaded area H1. This window W
The reason why the width of pin 1 is narrow is to prevent the image of pin 3.5 located at the rear from entering. In addition, setting the window to each bin head part is as follows.
This is to prevent the knocked down pin from entering the window, and for this purpose, the window may be set at an appropriate location within the range from the top of the bowling bin to the narrowest position of the pin, for example. Note that each window must be configured so that the pin does not enter that window, not only when the pin corresponding to that window is knocked down, but also when the pin corresponding to another window is knocked down. . Similarly, for pins 2 and 3, a rectangular window W2 that includes the left edge line of the head and is wider than that for bin 1, which is narrow in width. W3 is set. This window W2
．． Similarly to pin 1, W3 also has pin 8 at the rear.
．． 9 images are set so that they do not fall within these windows. For pins 4, 5.6, a wider rectangular window W4. W5. W6 is set. For pins 7 to 10, since there are no other pins behind them, a rectangular window that includes the entire upper part of the pin head and is wider in width is set. In this case, as the reference value for binarization, an intermediate value □ between the 7-value □ video signal level E7 and B shown in FIG. 5 is selected in common for all windows W1 to WIO. Therefore, when a pin is overthrown, its pinhead image disappears from its corresponding window, and
Since there are no other pin images behind it, the image area within the window is zero, which allows us to identify that the pin has been knocked down. As described above, since the window is set at the position of the pin head, there is no possibility that images of other pins that have been knocked down will enter the window. The image area within the narrow window is calculated by the image feature extraction circuit 26 of FIG. 3, and the identification circuit 27 identifies the pin overturn based on the fact that the image area is less than a predetermined value. In setting the windows shown in FIG. 6, if the same reference value is set for each window, the binarization circuit 22 (see FIG. 3) and its processing can be simplified. An imaging field of view 4o in FIG. 7 showing another example is an image taken from diagonally above directly in front of the pins 1 to 10 that have been centered. In this case, images of some pin heads overlap with images of other pins behind it. For example, pin 1 and pin 5, pin 2 and pin 8, and pin 3 and pin 9. In addition, windows Wll to W corresponding to each pin head
20 can be set to be wide in the horizontal direction with the image of the pin head in the center within a range that does not overlap with each other. However, different reference values are set for each window. For example, for pin 1, the value is 1 - video signal level El
, E2 (see FIG. 5) - is selected. Similarly, the value 2 is selected for pins 2 and 3, the value 4 is selected for pins 4 to 6, and the value 7 is selected for pins 7 to 1o. Since the reference value is set as described above, for example, the head image of pin 1 exists within window Wll, but the image of pin 5 within the same window Wll is erased and clearly identified. This is because the reference value for binarization is higher than the video signal level E4 of pin 5. Below, window W12
pins 2 and 8 in window W13, and pin 3 in window W13,
The same applies to 9. As mentioned above, the reference value for binarization is set to Kl by 2°K4.
．． The reason for selecting four types (7) is that all possibilities of overlapping of pin head images between the front and rear pins were taken into consideration. In reality, there is almost no overlap, so the value is 2. It is quite possible to use just the two types of '7. Generally, the window should be made as wide as possible with the pin head in the center. This is because the pin may not be knocked down but may be pushed and moved, and if the pin head deviates from the window due to this movement, it will be mistakenly identified as being "knocked down." In the embodiment shown in FIG. 7, since each window can be set wide, this type of erroneous identification can be prevented. Also, when setting the window itself, make sure it does not overlap with other pin images, or the position of the TV camera. When determining the direction, there is no need to pay particular attention to the pin head so that the image of the pin behind it does not overlap, and adjustment is much easier. In the embodiment shown in FIG. 7, the light source 31 is a bar-shaped fluorescent lamp (
(See Figure 1), and since the light is emitted from above the front of the set pins, the brightness of pins lined up on the same line in the horizontal direction is assumed to be almost equal, which is the standard for binarization. A common value was selected. If the brightness of pins on the same line differs to such an extent that they cannot be considered to be actually equal due to illumination conditions, different reference values may be set for each window depending on the brightness.

【Effect of the invention】

As explained above, before a pin is knocked down by a pitch, each set area has only the corresponding pin head image, and at least part of it is at least partially included. If a certain pin is knocked down, the image of the pin head disappears from the corresponding area, so it can be identified that the pin has been knocked down. Therefore, according to the present invention, the following superior effects can be obtained compared to the conventional technology. (1) Although the identification principle is simple, the identification accuracy is extremely high. (2) Since the device to which this invention is applied does not include any moving parts, it is less prone to breakdowns and is also durable and has a long life. (3) Adjustment of the device is easy and can be done in a short time, and is advantageous in terms of cost. (4) Since the installation position of the device is close to the position of the pin to be set and therefore away from the competitors, its presence will not be noticed and will not spoil the atmosphere of the competition. (5) According to the embodiment, since each region is binarized using its respective reference value, erroneous identification will not occur even if the front and rear pins 6 are somewhat similar in type. In other words, since there is more room in the setting position of the area, the setting becomes easier. In addition, since the area can be set to be wider than the corresponding pinhead, regardless of the pinhead behind it, even if a fairly large pin movement occurs, the pinhead image will still be within that area, and it will not be "overthrown". The identification accuracy is further improved.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a plan view of the arrangement of a device to which an embodiment of the present invention is applied, FIG. 2 is a side view thereof, FIG. 3 is a block diagram of the device to which this embodiment is applied, and FIG.
The figure is a pin arrangement diagram. Figure 5 is a diagram of the correspondence between pin numbers, their video signal levels, and binarization reference values. Figure 6 is an explanatory diagram of the imaging field of view when this embodiment is applied. Figure 7 8 is an explanatory diagram of the imaging field of view when another embodiment is applied, FIG. 8 is a plan view of the device arrangement to which the prior art is applied, and FIG. 9 is a side view thereof. Code explanation 1 to 10: Pin (1st pin to 10th pin), W1 to WI
Oi Wll~W20: Window (area), H1~
HIO; H1l~H20: Pin head image, 21:T
V camera, 22: Binarization circuit, 23: Reference value setting circuit,
24: Image memory, 25: Window setting circuit, 26 Two-image feature extraction circuit, 27: Identification circuit, 28: Monitor TV
, 29 Nice core display device, 30.40: Imaging field of view, 1st result 2nd eye ■ ■ ■ [Phase] ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ Figure 4 5th eye φ 1~10 1~10 8th eye 90

Claims (1)

[Claims] (1) The set pin is captured by an imaging means diagonally above the front surface of the pin, and the image of the head of any of the pins obtained by this imaging means is based on the image of the head of another pin set in front of it. A region is set by a region setting means for each of the pinheads, the region is imaged so as not to be blocked and at least partially includes an image of at least a part of the pinhead within the imaging field of view, and a region is defined for the region. Identification of a toppled pin in bowling, characterized in that the presence or absence of an image of the pin head after pitching within the area is determined from a binarized image signal based on a reference value to identify whether the pin is toppled. Method. 2) In the method described in claim 1, the video signal of the pinhead image in each region is binarized based on a reference value commonly determined for all regions, and When the pin corresponding to the area is overthrown,
A bowling pin identification method characterized in that each region does not include a pin image located behind it. 3) A bowling method according to claim 1, characterized in that the video signal of the pinhead image in each region is binarized based on a reference value determined for each region. How to identify overthrown pins. 4) In the method described in claim 3, the reference values determined for each region are as follows for pins 2 and 3, pins 4 to 6, and pins 7 to 10. A bowling pin identification method characterized by being common to each other.